If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Hearts of Iron IV

Paradox just announced that they are working on Hearts of Iron IV, with a release scheduled sometime in the distant 2015

I'm interested in what they have in store for this, presumably they are going to port the game to Clausewitz 2 engine, just hope they don't dumb it down (no mandatory 3D models please, units in military symbols with counters. Refined OOB system etc). Looking forward to it.

Although I would really like that they put all their efforts into making a decent cold war grand strategy game first ....

Our goal is to do what we did between hoi1 & hoi2 and apply than on hoi3.

A quote from Balor in the HoI IV forums.

I'm not sure what to make of that but I can speculate. Seems that HoI III unit organization is going to be simplified then? (But from what I can remember from HoI titles prior HoI III was the horrendous micromanagement).

HoI 3 is great at this point. It required significant amounts of goodwill to play pre-SF, but FTM and TFH are both working well and with the Black ICE mod its a great game which i have wasted many nights on.

HOI3 was shit at launch, but became great with the expansion / patches over time. Same happened with HOI2, though peopleseemed to have forgotten that original launch. Biggest change between HOI1 and 2 was 'Move is attack', so I'm not sure what they are hinting at with reards to hoi4.

If they ditch the HoI 3 (incl expansions) unit organizer and KI function for automating operations, I'll be so mad. I love to give orders to my carefully crafted battleformations and send them into combat.

So, some previews of the game are pouring in. Judging from what is stated, I am really looking forward to some of the revamped features:

Production is handled at a region-level, similar to how factories worked in Victoria 2. Instead of straight-up building divisions made up of regiments, you build 'pools' of resources, like tanks, etc..., which you then use to create the regiments and divisions. Hearts of Iron IV uses the concept of 'Assembly Lines', where you tell your factories to build a specific tank, plane, etc... and then you assign factories to it. The performance of this is then influenced by the number of factories, the strategic resources you control, and also the efficiency of your factories in building that specific product. This ties into the tech tree which we'll talk about in a minute, but you don't have 'Light' 'Medium' etc... tanks anymore, you have specific chassis and you tell your factories to build pools of different military hardware

Also the way they have simplified map filters, map modes and overall which screen you are on (diplomatic for instance) depending on which zoom level you are at in any time on the map is also interesting

Could have sworn this was announced ages ago, or am I thinking of the one set in modern times?

Remember posting in a thread about it.

You are thinking about East vs West. HoI IV's existence was literally unveiled a few days ago by paradox. Hearts of Iron IV is a little away from alpha, EvW will (hopefully) be released as open beta sometime in March if all goes to plan.

Some more updates from previews gives more insight to battle deployment/army maneuver and how this works together with spies and intelligence:

You see, it’s important to draw up war plans because units get bonuses if they have time to reach their jump-off points and prepare for the attack. You are weaker if you order units around at a whim, so you plan and prepare for operations.

But plans can be stolen. This is actually kind of brilliant. Espionage usually fails in games because there are no secrets to steal. There is not enough diplomatic or strategic inertia to prevent players from doing whatever they want, whenever they want to do it. So you end up with “spies” being used as sabotage units, or as rumor mongers who give you vague reports of, “Someone is building up a fleet” or “Russia is going to attack Germany”. Hearts of Iron 4 looks to solve these problems by encouraging players to invest in laying the groundwork for major campaigns, at the risk of having spies stumble upon them. It’s a very cool idea, and one I very much hope to see used elsewhere.

So as I am sure any player of HoI III already are familiar with, the battle planner lets you draw up your strategies in a neat way with arrows and lines but it doesn't actually do anything unless you want to share these plans with another human player in a mp session. In HoI IV this is going to be modus operandi for moving your units around, doing offensives, counteroffensives and defensive operations. But also, spies can now steal these plans which opens up a whole new dimension to the intel mechanics and sews them much more in line with how it actually worked in real life.

This sounds very promising, and has raised my expectations that much higher. Can't wait!

If they ditch the HoI 3 (incl expansions) unit organizer and KI function for automating operations, I'll be so mad. I love to give orders to my carefully crafted battleformations and send them into combat.

Originally Posted by helgur

Some more updates from previews gives more insight to battle deployment/army maneuver and how this works together with spies and intelligence:

You see, it’s important to draw up war plans because units get bonuses if they have time to reach their jump-off points and prepare for the attack. You are weaker if you order units around at a whim, so you plan and prepare for operations.

But plans can be stolen. This is actually kind of brilliant. Espionage usually fails in games because there are no secrets to steal. There is not enough diplomatic or strategic inertia to prevent players from doing whatever they want, whenever they want to do it. So you end up with “spies” being used as sabotage units, or as rumor mongers who give you vague reports of, “Someone is building up a fleet” or “Russia is going to attack Germany”. Hearts of Iron 4 looks to solve these problems by encouraging players to invest in laying the groundwork for major campaigns, at the risk of having spies stumble upon them. It’s a very cool idea, and one I very much hope to see used elsewhere.

So as I am sure any player of HoI III already are familiar with, the battle planner lets you draw up your strategies in a neat way with arrows and lines but it doesn't actually do anything unless you want to share these plans with another human player in a mp session. In HoI IV this is going to be modus operandi for moving your units around, doing offensives, counteroffensives and defensive operations. But also, spies can now steal these plans which opens up a whole new dimension to the intel mechanics and sews them much more in line with how it actually worked in real life.

This sounds very promising, and has raised my expectations that much higher. Can't wait!

Paradox got better and both EU IV and CK II were playable post release. Yes, they are hard to get into and impossible to master (for me as well) but it is so damn worth it. And honestly with HoI, just set everything to AI mode and manage what you think you can. Also play the fucking tutorials.

The whole battleplan thing sounds nice for single and cooperagtive multiplayer, but I wonder what its effects will be on MP. Making a good battleplan will take a lot of pausing I guess. Will also hurt my style, as I micromanage fucking everything in HOI3.